angelic nature; and by this term we are led to understand all created beings superior to man.

10-12. This is a description of the power of God, in changing the whole system of nature, while he himself remains the same, and it may be introduced to shew that the power of Christ is as permanent as that of God, who gave it to him.* 13. This is a quotation from Psalm cx. 1, which relates to David or Solomon.†

14. That is, angels are subservient even to Christians, and much more so to Christ their head.

PARAPHRASE.

God, who, at several times and in various manners, formerly spake to the ancestors of the Jewish nation by the prophets, has, in these last days, spoken to us by his Son, whom he has appointed Lord of all the new system, or constitution of things, established in the gospel, and by whom he has arranged all the future periods of it; who, shining with his Father's brightness, or bearing a near resemblance to him, and exercising that power over all nature which he conferred upon him, having submitted to death, by which he may be said, in allusion to the Jewish sacrifices, to have offered himself for our sins, is now set down at the right hand of God.

That Christ is superior to angels, may be inferred fromhis being distinguished by higher appellations. Did God ever address the angels as he does his Son, in a passage in the book of Psalms, which we may apply to Christ: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? In another passage he says, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son. Also, when after the resurrection God brings his Son again to the world, as his empire, in which he is appointed to reign, we may apply to him this passage in the Psalms, that all the angels of God be subject to him.

Concerning angels, God speaks in a very different manner; for in one passage he says, he maketh the winds his angels, and flames of fire his ministers. But to the Son of God

See Emlyn's Works, 1746, II. p. 341; Lindsey's Sequel, pp. 488-492; Impr. Vers.; Belsham's Inquiry, pp. 172, 213, 214.

Vers. 10-12. "A quotation from Psalm cii. 25-27; where they are addressed to God, and so they are here-and are fitly applicable to the kingdom of God by the Messiah." Lardner (Logos), XI. p. 124. On vers. 8-12, see Wakefield's Enquiry, pp. 257–266.

+ See Matt. xxii, 44. "Our Lord's enemies are not subjected by his own power, but by the interference of God." Wakefield's Enquiry, p. 268.

we may apply that passage in the Psalms, in which the writer, speaking of Solomon, says, "God is thy throne," or the foundation of thy power, "for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom: Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore God, even thy God, has anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy companions."

The perpetual duration of the kingdom of Christ is alluded to in this passage of the Psalms, in which is described the unchangeable power of God, who gave him his authority: "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands: they shall perish, but thou remainest; and they shall all wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail." To which also of the angels did God say, what was originally spoken of David, but which we may apply to Christ, "Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemics thy footstool"? Angels are only ministering spirits subservient to Christians, and much more to Christ, their Lord and Master.

II. The writer of this epistle continues to shew the superiority of the gospel to the law of Moses, from the superior dignity of the person by whom it was promulgated; the law having been given by the ministration of angels, and the gospel by Jesus Christ, who, for the suffering of death, was exalted above angels. For it is evident in this chapter, that the idea of Christ being properly a man, is as clearly attended to by this writer, as his superiority to angels by the appointment of God.

1. Or, as it is rendered in the margin, lest we should run out as leaking vessels; for the idea of the writer is not that of holding things in the hand and letting go their hold.

4. In these respects, however, the two dispensations

• "Compare Ch. ii. 1-3 with Acts vii. 53, Gal. iii. 19. The apostle's argument for the great excellency and dignity of Christianity, would have no force or consequence at all, if it should be supposed, that the very same person, Christ himself, had appeared and acted ministerially before." Dr. Morgan's Tracts in Trin. Cont. 1726, (Pref.) pp. xxiii. xxiv.

"Lest we should pervert them." Junius in Bowyer.
See Le Clerc. Ver. 3. To us.

"The words a nuas, signify properly to our

times, to the times in which the apostle lived." Sykes.

"Distributions of the Holy Spirit. A remarkable expression, plainly declaring that by the Holy Spirit was meant those spiritual gifts which came down upon men from heaven, immediately, or were communicated, in great variety, by the laying on of the hands of the apostles." Lardner (Logos), XI. P. 136.

agree, both coming from God, and appearing to do so by such miracles accompanying the promulgation of them as could have no other author besides the Author of nature itself, the laws of which were suspended or altered by them. The writer, however, seems to intimate that the miracles under the law were wrought indeed by angels, under the Divine direction, but not so immediately by God himself, as in the Christian miracles, since, with respect to them, no being above the rank of man is said to have been employed; so that the power must have been immediately that of God himself, as it is here expressed, according to his own will, or express volition, which confirms what our Saviour himself said, [John xiv. 10,] that the Father, who was in him, did the works, and that the words which he spake, were not his own, but the Father's, who sent him.

5. The world to comet means in general a future state; but here it signifies the empire or dominion that is given to Christ, commencing in some measure at his resurrection, for then Christ may be said to be brought into his world, or rather his empire, or state of dominion and power, though his kingdom does not properly take place till his second coming to raise the dead and judge the world. At present, according to his own language, [Luke xix. 12,] he is gone to receive a kingdom, and he will return to exercise it when he shall come in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. This power, which, however, is not confined to Christ, but is to be enjoyed by his apostles and his followers in general, is not promised to angels, and therefore, though their nature be superior to that of man, yet, in this respect, they are inferior to Christ. Paul says, [1 Cor. vi. 3,] that so far are angels from being the judges of men, that the saints shall judge even angels.

6—8.‡ The argument by which the writer of this epistle attempts to prove the superiority of Christ to angels, is, that to him all things are said to be put in subjection, including that dominion which will hereafter be exercised by Christ, and that nothing of that kind is ever said of angels. § But the proof of this is only from a passage [Ps. viii. 6] in which dominion is promised to man and to the son of man. But the dominion there spoken of is only over animals and

• « For, or moreover, as introducing a collateral argument or fact." Impr. Vers. + See Mede, p. 577; Doddridge. "The Messiah was prophesied of as the Father of the age to come (Isa. ix. 6). So the Alexand. copy." Sykes.

Of, rather than unto the Son, as of the angels, in ver. 7. See Mede, p. 577. $ See N. T. 1729, on ver. 6.

1

the inferior creation in general, which were originally made subject to man, as we read in the account of the creation, to which the Psalmist alludes. This is allowed by almost all commentators, and it is a very clear instance of the very loose manner in which the Jews of that age applied passages of Scripture, even in serious argumentation; and it shews how little stress is to be laid upon such arguments; for certainly it cannot follow that because man in general, or the son of man, is superior to the brute creation, and therefore lord of this world, that therefore Christ, as the son of man, is lord of the future world. In things of this nature, as I have frequently observed, we, who have the Scriptures of the Old Testament before us, must read and judge for ourselves, as the apostles did.

[9. Made a little lower than the angels.] That is, a man, answering to the description of man given by the Psalmist in the passage quoted by the writer of this epistle.†

This complete dominion, the writer observes, is not yet given to Christ, but we see some earnest of it in the state of glory and honour to which he was raised by his resurrection from the dead, after those sufferings by which he became qualified for it.

The phrase, for every man, does not signify in the stead of every man, but only on the behalf of man, to which both the death of Christ, and every thing that he did, was subservient.‡

10.§ It was a wise measure in the Supreme Ruler of all things, in order to raise meu to a state of immortal glory and happiness, to prepare him who was to take the lead in this scheme, and who was the first to be advanced to this high dignity, by a course of suffering; this being the natural means of producing in him that perfection of character which is requisite for such an exalted station.

"By suffering death, crowned with glory.' Peirce et al. 'Crowned with glory, that, by the favour of God, he might be above all death.'--'But we see all things not yet subject to him (man): yet we behold him little lower than the angels. But Jesus we behold, by suffering death, crowned with glory, &c.' Thus the apostle magnifies the prerogative of man, as the psalmist does, and of Christ above all.'" Heinsius in Bowyer. See Sykes; Turner in Theol. Repos. I. p. 62, Impr. Vers.

See the author, Theol. Repos. III. pp. 345, 346; Wakefield.

"Here is no restraint at all, nor any seeming limitation of that comprehensive phrase, He tasted death, weps Tarlos, for every man, distributively taken, (for dictum de omui, say the Logicians, distributes the subject). But there is something which doth seem to strengthen the general intendment of the phrase; for this is said to magnify the grace of God, in sending his Son to die for man." Whitby (Five Points), p. 123. See Le Clerc; Sykes; Chauncey, p. 180.

§ See Haynes, (Pt. ii. Ch. xxii.), p. 287.

The writer of this epistle having here called Christ the captain of our salvation, or the leader of our salvation,* he who stands foremost in the honourable list, now shews that there was the greatest propriety in his being of the same rank with those at whose head he was placed, as a general with respect to an army; and I would observe, that all that follows in this chapter, has no other object; and he could never have written it with any other idea than that of Christ being as much a man as any of his followers who bore the Christian name.†

12. This is a quotation from Ps. xxii. 22, in which the writer, speaking in his own name, calls his fellow-worshippers brethren.

13. [I will put my trust in him.] That is, as other mortal men do, who have no ground of support or confidence in themselves. Such expressions as these are frequent in the Psalms. [Behold I, &c.] This is an expression of Isaiah,§ who is speaking of his own children, which the writer of this epistle applies to Christ and his disciples.

14, 15. As those who are to be converted to Christianity are men, it was proper that Christ should be a man also, in order that, dying like other men, he might put an end to the power of death and all evil. The principle, or cause to which all evil is to be referred, is, as I have frequently observed, called in the Scriptures the Devil or Satan, that is, something adverse or hostile to man, as the word signifies, which is personified, as sin and death likewise are.¶

16-18. The writer of this epistle represents Christ as being a man subject to death, in order to deliver other men from the fear of death, which fear of death, as an excellent critic, Mr. John Palmer, has lately observed,** does not lay hold of angels, but only on the seed of Abraham, that is,

* Sykes. See Ch. xii. 2; Acts iii. 15; v. 31.

Ver. 11. "He is not ashamed to call them brethren. Jesus, therefore, in our apostle's account, is a creature of God, a descendant of Adam, and one of our brethren of mankind." Com. and Ess. I. p. 433.

See Ps. xviii. 2; Sykes.

"In Isa. viii. 17, 18, both these

§ See Dodson's Isaiah (viii. 18), pp. 202, 203. clauses stand together in the LXX.; so that I guess the second κas waxy, [and again], has been put in here by the Scribes, and that the apostle made but one sentence of them. The first words, alone, are not to his purpose." Wall in Bowyer.

Who, through fear of death, were subject to fear, (deλuaç,) all their lives." Junius in Bowyer.

T

See

"The Jews said that the devil, who held the empire of death, was called Samael, under whose power God had put all nations, except their own. Maimonides." N. T. 1729.

**In Theol. Repos. V. pp. 161-165. See the Author's account of Mr. Palmer, bid, VI. pp. 217-224.